Peter Funt: Protect the children while the adults debate

Jonathan Hornik, the Democratic mayor of Marlboro Township in New Jersey, is a pragmatist. He favors a ban on the sale of assault weapons. He also wants to prohibit ordinary residents from possessing high-capacity magazines. He is eagerly anticipating recommendations from Vice President Joe Biden's task force for additional ways to curb gun violence.

But realizing the essential steps will take time, Hornik is taking immediate action to protect the 8,000 children in his community by stationing a uniformed police officer in each school.

The gun issue is one of the most divisive in America. The mere mention of new gun laws incites harsh commentary on both sides and on Capitol Hill the topic is more radioactive than taxes, the deficit or even war.

But the issue of school safety goes beyond guns. When it comes to children, what matters is protecting them while their elders struggle to find better societal solutions for maintaining their safety.

After the Newtown attack, the notion of placing cops in schools was immediately politicized because it was among things advocated by the NRA's arch leader, Wayne LaPierre. Anything the NRA suggests is immediately challenged by gun opponents—much as any proposal to limit gun ownership is contested by Second Amendment fundamentalists.

LaPierre is a lousy spokesman, and his choice of words—"good guys with guns"—only serves to confuse matters.

Officials such as Hornik are not proposing arming civilians, as the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio seeks to do in Arizona. They are talking about stationing uniformed town police officers at schools, just as they are sent to patrol ballparks, malls, airports, etc. Hornik's rationale is spot on when he says that the cops "will give our students comfort, our town and community comfort, and will have anybody think twice about coming into Marlboro schools."

Yet those who disagree with this simple logic deliberately distort the issue in their choice of words. They persist in using the term "armed guards," though town police would never be referred to that way in routine performance of their duties. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says having a cop on duty would make schools "armed camps." How ridiculous.

More than 20 percent of the nation's public schools already have a city or town cop present, and the facilities are no more armed camps than Yankee Stadium is when New York cops patrol during games.

Some say uniformed police would send the wrong message to kids. Why? Youngsters should be taught cops are their friends—people they must rush to if they encounter trouble in public.

Opponents make much of the fact that in 1999, a deputy stationed at Columbine High in Colorado failed to thwart gunmen who killed 12 students. But no form of police protection is perfect. Gunmen got to John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, but that is certainly no reason to stop providing protection for presidents.

It is often mentioned that hiring cops is expensive, especially for small communities. That is a matter of local priorities, although I would advocate a federal program to assist municipalities in paying for officers in schools.

"My first choice would be to never have a gun in our schools," explains Hornik, "but while the president and the NRA and the Congress debate policy and law, the fact is there are guns out there. How many times do we have to see these kinds of mass shootings before we decide to protect our kids?"

Hornik's position is not a concession to the NRA, nor should it detract from the critical issue of gun control.

If a public building were to be used to store several hundred gold bars, stationing a cop at the door wouldn't spark so much as a syllable of debate. Why do we think less of a school containing several hundred precious children?